


Everything

by TheCalamity



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: AVALANCHE crew, Family, Gen, Holiday, Seventh Heaven (Compilation of FFVII), santa suit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21850591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCalamity/pseuds/TheCalamity
Summary: Marlene's first Winter Festival is not where it should be. Beneath the plate in the seedy slums of Midgar; at the back of a ramshackle bar, Barret is determined to make up for an entire lifetime of everything they've lost.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: FF7 Secret Santa 2019





	Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CuracaoxCure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuracaoxCure/gifts).



> Prompt was:
> 
> _"Marlene lost her parents and look to Barret for support. I like a piece, be it in writing or art, to show something of Marlene's first holiday with Barret. Like Barret surprising Marlene dressed as Santa giving her a toy, or just spending quiet time with her and doing his best to be the best father and providing Marlene what she wants for the holidays. I want it to be something along the lines of spending time with family."_
> 
> I really, really hope you like this. I'm sorry if it is too dark. I did my best to keep it as light as I could within the context. 
> 
> c/w: descriptions of ShinRa's destruction. 
> 
> Suggested Listening - [Anxious Heart, Remastered - Enrico Deiana](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu-7k2Nwte0)

“Barret?” Tifa’s voice was heavy, slowed by the weight of caution, the consideration of words. 

“She’s not… She’s  _ really _ small. She isn’t going to remember any of it.” Tifa wrapped her arms around herself, held onto the space above her elbows. She had meant the effort, the sad looking tree that had been rescued for too much gil from a junk shop on the Wall, the gifts, the fussing. It would be a relief then, a mercy, that if Marlene’s first Winter Festival wouldn’t be remembered, neither would any of the circumstances that lead to it being where it didn’t belong. The deafening blast of a violent, massive explosion; the sound of her whole world collapsing, the heat of the curling, hungry flames, fire and mako; the cries of agony, confusion and loss.

Tifa remembered. The crackling and popping of burning wooden beams, buckling walls. The stench of burning skin and hair. Coughing, screaming. Smoke so dense it blotted out the stars. Chaos. 

_ Papa.  _

Tears had glossed Tifa’s large dark eyes, beaded in her lower lashes. She smiled brightly, purposeful, refused to let them fall. “You don’t have to do this. Next year, maybe.”

Barret sat atop a bar stool, slumped forward. His only forearm hung between his legs, elbow against a knee. He stared at nothing; and if he was listening, there was no indication.

Tifa’s false, forced smile didn’t falter. She wiped at an eye with the back of her hand, wished away the burning behind her nose. “Next year… everything will be better. We can even find a proper Festival tree, I bet she’d love that. We always had a real Winterfest tree when I was a kid.”

Still, Barret said nothing. 

Tifa did not like silence, did not know how to sit with heaviness, or quiet. “I remember, I used to lay underneath it with my cat, Zip. I’d look up through the branches at all the lights. Mom liked the soft white ones. It was like being in a whole different magical place under that tree. Like a fairy forest. Or the Lifestream. On Festival Eve, the whole town would have a cookie and hot cocoa buffet at the inn, make paper Shivas for the lantern lighting... and then we’d all have a snowball fight.” She paused, tilt her cheek toward her shoulder. “Did it ever snow in Corel?”

Barret did not move. Let the discomfort of silence sit for a moment. “No.”

Tifa’s practiced smile faded. “I-- I’m sorry, Barret.” 

He straightened his back, slid from the stool. He was partially dressed in a pair of old, waffle weave, red long underwear. They didn’t quite fit. Barret had gotten his legs into the garment on his own. The top half hung at his waist. For a while he attempted to work his arm into the sleeve, to shrug it up over his shoulder. Instead, the fabric twist and slid, felt mocking in the use of only one hand. 

Tifa could stand the sight no longer, intervened. “Please-- let me help.” Her small, quick hands worked the sleeves up and over his biceps, tugged and smoothed the yoke around his collar bones. “All I meant is… it’s okay to rest. This year. You’ve both been through so much.” 

The large white buttons of the long underwear were fastened. They took effort to secure, left stretched gaps of red between them. The assistance annoyed Barret, rubbed at raw wounds. He had been so strong once; now he couldn’t dress himself. Dyne was dead. And Myrna. Eleanor. They were dead, and he couldn’t help them, like he couldn’t even help himself, couldn’t put on his own shirt. 

“Rest? Tifa, really?  _ Rest _ …?” 

“I just meant that--”

Barret took a wide step back, recoiled away from her. “Aint no  _ resting. _ Not anymore.” 

Tifa folded her hands at her front, crossed at the wrists. “Barret I--”

“This is Marlene’s first Winter Festival. Ever. All that cookie buffet and snow fight and magic tree shit you had in your home with your family-- we had our traditions in Corel, too. And she’ll never have any of it. Her family is dead, her home is a fucking burnt ass dent in the ground.” Barret raised his fist, slashed the air. There was violence in it, but not the kind from malice. 

“I know you lost your family and your home, same as us. I ain’t dismissing that. But you  _ had  _ them. Goddam ShinRa took it all away; but you  _ had _ ‘em. Marlene has fucking nothing, no memories, no tradition, no--” 

Tifa’s gentle, husky voice went sharp, cold. “--She’s got _you_.”

“Goddam right she does. And I owe her a lifetime of making up double for everything she’ll never have. So no, no  _ resting. _ ”

Someone banged against the pipes above, a hollow sounding  _ clang-clan-clung _ . Bigg’s voice followed down, a hollar. “You guys almost ready? I think someone’s sick of waiting, and...uh, also maybe shit themselves.” 

“It was Wedge,” Jessie’s voice followed down Bigg’s, punctuated with Wedge’s  _ what?! Hey! _

Tifa moved to the lift, cupped her palm to the side of her mouth. “Up in a minute!”

She turned back to Barret, forced another smile. Smaller, closed lipped, bigger on one side. The big ones had become too taxing. An overlong knit stocking cap with white yarn pom was taken from the box the rest of the costume had been in, Tifa tugged the hat down around his head. Like the rest, it was an ill fit. “Oh, the beard! Sit.” 

Wedge had crafted a makeshift Festival King mustache and beard from a collection of unrolled cotton balls and thread. It was impressive for what it was. Barret sat again on the stool, still and dutiful. Tifa looped one end of thread behind Barret’s right ear, then the left, fussed with the placement. Pleased with herself, she clasped her hands, bounced once from her heels to her toes and back again. “Ta-da! The Festival King himself, right here in Sector 7! How do you feel?”

“Stupid.” Barret stood. “How do I look?”

Tifa lift a fist to her chin, pushed the knuckle of her index finger below her lips. She tilted her head side to side, took in the entire spectacle. Barret was far too big for the long underwear, which itself was not in the best repair. Patched in places, stained in others. It was the best they could find on short notice, when the spirit of the season possessed Barret suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, preferable to the endless spiral of shame and grief. It was the right color though, even if it didn’t fit, and the jolly knit hat and fake beard conveyed enough what was meant. 

Barret posed for inspection with arms outstretched. One sleeve of the suit hung limp and lifeless below the elbow. Tifa, quick, tied the excess material into a neat, clean knot-- a secret. “You look perfect.”

Upstairs, Jessie animated. “Wedge, do you hear that?!”

Wedge looked to the tiny girl in his arms, gave her a little bounce. “What, where? No I don’t hear-- wait! I do! I hear it!”

Jessie gave the baby a gentle poke. “Listen, Marlene! Up on the roof! Hear it?”

At the table in the corner of the bar, Biggs began to drum against the underside of the tabletop. 

“It’s-- noooo… it can’t be-- here?” Wedge overacted. 

Biggs turned his face to the wall, made an unconvincing chocobo call into his shoulder. 

“It is!” Wedge gasped, “It’s the Festival King and his enchanted chocobos! They landed on the roof!” 

“Bfffpptt--” Marlene wiggled against the bundle of her blanket.

Jesse banged her fist against a pipe near the lift, a singal. The lift began its rising; old, rusted gears and chains and wire.

Biggs made a face of disapproval. “If the Festival King landed his sleigh on the roof, why the hell would he come up from downstairs?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jessie said cheerily through her teeth, sing-song. 

“Wark,” Biggs corrected.

Wedge turned, propped Marlene up enough to take in the whole of the scene. 

The Seventh Heaven was the same as any building in the slums; more haphazard collection of rusting scrap metal, corrugated iron, concrete and plywood than proper structure. It was too small for the things inside of it, reeked of stale cigarette smoke. A small, bent, fake Festival tree had been placed on the bartop, a single string of multicolored lights wound around what remained of the wiry branches. Neon sign lights of the walls tinted the single room in artificial blues and pinks. Winter Festival music, peppered with the static of poor reception, came from a tabletop radio. Nothing about Barret’s entrance was grand aside from his intentions. 

When the lift stopped, Barret stepped forward. “Aho, ho, ho…!”

Jessie clapped and cheered, Biggs guffawed, and Wedge gave the baby in his arms an excited little squeeze. “Look Marlene, it’s the Festival King!” 

Tifa’s eyes went wide, a sniff of the air-- a tell of cookies she had forgotten about in the back corner oven. “Oh--  _ shit-- _ !” She dart to the oven door, wrenched it open, waved at the furles of gray cloying smoke with a dishrag. It wasn’t enough. The bar’s smoke alarm began.

Biggs ran for the front door. The opening of it was to let the smoke out; instead, Johnny tumbled in.

Dressed in a hooded one piece zip up moogle pajama suit, a sack slung over his shoulder, he staggered forward.

Jessie had pulled the collar of her teeshirt up over the lower half of her face. “Dude, you’re late! Where were you?!”

“Sorry,” Johnny always sounded as if he had too much bubblegum wadded up in one side of his mouth when he spoke. “I got lost.”

Jessie snapped back, more amused than angry. “What the fuck you got  _ lost _ , you live  _ nextdoor _ !” 

Wedge did his best to make do, turned the baby to face the front door and moogle-suited Johnny. “And look at that, it’s The Festival King’s helper mog with all your presents!”

Marlene began to scream. 

The smoke, the lights, the alarm; the crackly, staticy music, costumed men; it was too much. Her tiny hands curled into fists, swung against the air. She kicked and writhed and reddened, as Tifa climbed a stool and silenced the alarm, as Biggs ushered smoke out of the door, as Jessie turned off the radio and Johnny stood in awkward quiet, as Wedge placed her carefully in the crook of Barret’s arm.

“No crying on Festival Eve!” Barret attempted, rocked the girl instinctively, determined. 

Marlene would have her Winter Festival, her first. She would have the tree and the lights and the gifts and the cookies and the Festival King and all his enchanted chocobos. She had to. She had to have them. 

“Aho, ho, ho... !“ Barret tried again, desperate. She had to have it all. She had to. She needed it because he needed it for her. Everyone else looked on, quiet, dejected. 

Marlene screamed louder.

Her wailing was more awful than the piercing alert of the smoke alarm, frantic and helpless. 

“Marlene,” Barret struggled to shift her, moved the girl against his chest, held her against himself with what remained of his right arm. He pulled the cotton and thread beard away from his mouth and chin, tugged off the hat, worked Marlene back into the crook of his left arm. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. It’s just me. Just me. See?”

The baby looked to Barret’s face, quieted in recognition. A few more wet small gasps, and she was silent, staring.

“Just me. It was just me. I’m sorry little one, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ve got you. Everything s’okay. It was just me all along. See? It’s just me. ”

Marlene’s fat little cheeks were red as Barret’s Festival King suit, smeared with tears. And then she smiled. A big, gummy, drooly smile. Everything that didn’t matter had gone away. 

“Da-da-da-da,”

“Yeah. It’s me. It’s Papa. Merry Winterfest, baby girl. Everything will be okay."


End file.
